


The Girl

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Retirementlock, Sussex, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So much odd stuff coming ashore in my brain the last two days. This is retirement-era Sherlock. Sussex, farm, bees. Fairly advanced old age, though he ain'tn't dead yet! Nor are any of the other characters. I'd tell you more about what I think except it would spoiler the story. Perhaps I shall eventually add some notes at the bottom, where they can't ruin minor surprises as they unfold. </p><p>I do know one thing about where this one came from: thinking about the fact that ACD Sherlock showed relatively little sign of regret for his life choices, and that both BBC and ACD Sherlock seemed unlikely to pine and despair over any choices they'd made along the way, so long as he'd had and kept the few people who mattered to him in his otherwise solitary life. Sherlock strikes me as someone who, given a few very specific blessings, would be profoundly content with a bachelor home and a celibate's silences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl

The girl came out from town twice a week to clean at Hive House. Sherlock disliked the intrusion, but admitted that her efforts were probably all that stood between his independence and a repulsive life in an assisted living program somewhere—which would have swiftly led to his transfer from assisted living to prison living. More than three days pent up with senile goldfish and his experiments would take a sudden turn into the very dark side indeed.

In any case, he’d cozened her into bringing out his groceries and his standing orders from the local café—so he reckoned he ought to put up with her. More or less. When the weather allowed he gave her his orders, forbade her touching almost anything but the dust and the dirt themselves (and hands-off the articles the dust and dirt actually resided on) and retreated to the back garden to work with the bees. When the weather didn’t permit, he stood by the fireplace watching the girl and devising different ways of killing her. It passed the time and was a source of amusement—and in his opinion it was good for her. Kept her sharp, trying to figure the old man out…

He missed Mrs. Hudson quite bitterly. It was odd—he’d mourned her death years before, but moved on easily enough. It was only now, as he approached his final years and was reduced to dependence on the girl that he longed for his old landlady’s return.

“Oh, come now, Sherlock,” John had reproved him on one of his rare visits down to the Sussex farm. “She’s only seventeen, and quite the character. Mrs. Hudson would have loved her.”

“Mrs. Hudson loved far too indiscriminately,” Sherlock said.

John coughed, and grinned. “You do realize she loved you, don’t you?”

“My point exactly. Me, you, Mycroft…. Of course, her husband alone should have been proof of her reckless tendency to misplaced affections.”

“Still, I think your little char-girl is a peach, myself.”

“You’ve only just buried your third wife,” Sherlock snapped, disturbed in ways he didn’t want to explain that John’s approval had landed on the girl. “Don’t you think it’s a bit soon to be eyeing my char? Not to mention given your age it’s not May-September romance, but more like March-December.”

“Never too old to look, Sherlock. And Maisy would have said the same, too. She always liked a pretty young man, my Maisie…”

“Your third wife liked a pretty young man, a plain old man, and even a nicely turned-out dead man.” Sherlock scowled and went hunting for his pipe, feeling ruffled and irritated. Now that marijuana was legal, he liked an occasional pipe to soothe his nerves and sweeten his temper—and liked even better sending John into gibbering fits of judgmental fury, as he trotted out a laughable mess of true medical fact and entirely ridiculous and dated cultural fiction to try to argue Sherlock out of his self-indulgence. “Your Maisie was, shall we say, something of an enthusiast…”

“Mmmmmm,” John agreed, his voice a wistful, nostalgic hum. “That she was, that she was. Smartest thing I ever did, marrying Maisie. Just wish I hadn’t outlived her.”

Sherlock muttered under his breath that if John had died before his late wife he might not have made it to the cemetery, but instead to the taxidermist—providing she didn’t find livelier company on the way over to get John stuffed. But, then, Sherlock had in all truth never come to terms with sexuality—his, John’s, or anyone else’s. Maisie’s cheerful, earthy gusto had combined with John’s own inclinations in that direction. Together the two had constituted a gale-force storm of sexual _bonhomie_ that ensured Sherlock would flee back to Hive House after mere hours in their presence…

“It wasn’t enough that I saw them slipping up the stairs before I’d even got into the car as often as not,” Sherlock had reminisced to his brother during a recent phone call. “Sometimes they didn’t wait for me to go out the front door, but disappeared for a quick bounce between lunch and tea time.”

“You’re sure, Sherlock?” Mycroft had asked, in a voice of grave doubt. “At their age?”

“You’re not one to talk,” Sherlock had snapped back, “And do give me some credit. They called it a ‘nap,’ and wittered on about feeling their age and needing a little shut-eye after a good meal, but John’s bungalow isn’t that big and the walls and floor are thin.”

“Heard an earful?”

Sherlock growled at his brother’s far too amused tones. “You’d have been horrified too, brother-dearest.” Mycroft’s smug silence did nothing to calm his younger brother’s temper. “Oh, for the love of God, Mike—fine. Whatever. Go find Lestrade. You’re obviously too randy to talk sense until you’ve had your own _nap_.”

His attempt to rattle Mycroft failed, though, as always. “What a good idea! I do think I hear him ‘round back in the shed,” Mycroft cackled—or at least, Sherlock would insist later that it was a cackle, and quite repulsive. “I think I’ll just go ‘round back and see if he’s busy. Ta, brother-mine. Enjoy your celibate solitude.”

“I will,” Sherlock said—too late, as Mycroft clicked the connection closed.

Sherlock had frowned at the phone, thinking how grateful he was he hadn’t married. Things had turned out complicated enough as it was…

The girl was coming out to clean that day, and the weather was bad. Vile, in fact: spitting rain, fierce wind that made Sherlock’s joints ache. He wasn’t going to be out with the bees in that weather.

When he heard the girl’s ride pull up he went to the front window and scowled out. The driver, his own age, scowled back—but when he refused to smile, she grinned mischievously and threw him the bird, before driving off.

The girl scurried to the door, arms filled with carrier bags and mac flapping around her knees. She shouldered open the door and came crashing into the sitting room, huffing and pink-cheeked.

“Hallo, Gramps.”

“Don’t call me Gramps,” he snapped, as always.

“Not gon’ call you ‘Mr Holmes,’” she said, laughing. “Gran says hello, and wants you to trot down t’ the village and see her sometime.”

Sherlock snorted. “She oughtn’t fly me the bird, if she wants my company,” he growled. “Tell her she can mind her sauce if she expects a visit.”

The girl laughed harder. “Aye-yeah, Gramps. You know what she’ll say to that, yeah?”

Sherlock snorted, but didn’t answer. He knew quite well. “Next she’ll be asking me to move on down there,” he said. “I’d sooner go into assisted living.”

“No, you’d not,” the girl said. “That’s what you said about having me out to help, and see? You changed your mind and it all worked out, now, didn’ it?”

Sherlock harrumphed, and leaned against the mantle, refusing to say more.

The girl shot into the kitchen, arms still full of bags. He watched as she dumped them in a heap on the kitchen table, filled the electric kettle and set it on its power-dock, then started to put away groceries and food from the café.

She was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a nicely rounded figure and fair skin with an odd, un-English cae-au-lait note to her complexion—inherited from her grandmother, he supposed, though her mother’s line, too, were dark. They were blue-eyed Celts, though, in spite of their easy tans and jet hair. No, he thought it had to be through her gran that the dusky note came to her.

She poured out two mugs of tea, and shoved one into his hands before setting hers on the corner of his desk and beginning to clean.

“Oi—watch what you’re moving,” he growled. “You’ll lose my place.”

“You can find it again looking at your browsing history if I do,” she said, and moved the tablet to the bookshelf and started dusting the desk.

“Smarty,” he grumbled.

“Runs in the family, Gramps,” she said, eyes sparkling.

“Right,” he drawled. “And what? You’re the world’s only consulting char now?”

She sniffed. “Watch it, Gramps. Get too sarky with me I’ll get Grunkle My to find me work in London. He’s still got connections.”

“You’ll never,” he huffed. “You like the farm. Country girl—you’ve no love of the city.”

“I’m young,” she laughed. “Goin’ to uni once Gran doesn’t need me any more.”

He frowned. “Your Gran’s keeping you here?” He huffed. “She should know better. Seriously, girl, you want to go to uni you go. Or London—you’re right, My will find you a spot. He says you’ve got promise—though you’re not to tell him I told you so. A girl like you can’t stay trapped down here just to take care of an old woman. Let her go into assisted living.”

Her look was pure juvenile exasperation. “Yeah, Gramps. Right. Says you, up here on the farm. Between the two of you…”

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Never better. I’ll manage on my own if you want to go.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. And Gran says she’s spry as a cricket, and I should leave you to do your own dusting—and pay for your deliveries.”

“I pay,” he protested.

She looked at him, hands on her hips, and said nothing. The meagre worth of the five pounds he paid her for her delivery services—only slightly less than he paid her for her cleaning—sat as a silent reproach between them.

“I’ll bet your grandmother doesn’t pay you more,” he said.

“I live with Gran,” she pointed out. “Factor in room, board, and a lift up from town when I come out here to do for you.”

“She should have had her license taken years ago,” he argued. “You’re only encouraging her.”

“I like it better when you stand there planning how to murder me,” she said. “Why don’t you quiet down and plan a nice little homicide, and let me deal with your messes?”

He sighed, and crossed his arms—but did as she said. A half-hour later he said, “Any ideas, then? Guesses?”

“Smack me over the head with that big glass ashtray, drag me out to the back garden, toss me over the cliff at high tide,” she said. “Not your most novel idea, but it would get the job done so long as I drifted a bit.”

He snorted. “What gave me away?”

“Eye motions,” she said, promptly. “And you mutter. And you didn’t look even once at the knife block.”

He nodded, approvingly. “You’ll do. Maybe you really should let My find you a spot. You’re wasted on uni.”

She gave him a sly glance, and said, “Meet more boys in uni, Gramps.”

He shivered. “Your Gran’s a bad influence.”

“You should know…”

He glared, narrow-eyed. “Sass…”

“Mmmm.”

She was done by the time the sun began to set. She called home, then sat in the kitchen and drank another mug of tea with him while they waited for her grandmother to come fetch her.

“You ever think of moving to town and living with Gran? The two of you could get by better together than alone,” she said.

He didn’t deign to answer, glaring down his nose at her and harrumphing like a beached walrus.

“Fine,” she said, “But don’t come to me when the National Health decides you’re not fit to live on your own.”

“I’ll die first,” he insisted.

“Yes, well, a cyanide pill would see to that, I agree,” she said, “But personally I think moving in with Gran would be a better answer.”

He rose in relief when there was a knock at the door.

“She’s here,” he said. “Grab your mac. She won’t want to stand on the step long.” He went and opened the door as the girl chased around finding her coat. “She’ll just be a mo’,” he said to the woman at the door.

She rolled her eyes. “Ah, Shezz,” she said. “Would ‘Hello, Janine,’ and a peck on the cheek kill you?”

He grimaced. “Some fates are worse than death.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she chuckled. “Whatever. She do a good job for you?”

“Atrocious,” he said.

“Just the way you like it, then?”

“Of course,” he said—and couldn’t resist smiling.

When she’d driven off he stood in the window, a new mug of hot tea in his hand. That had been his downfall, he thought—that he could never resist smiling, in the end. She’d sass him and tease him, and all his best intentions would fall by the wayside, and he’d end up in her upstairs room, no better than John and his Maisie or Mycroft and Lestrade.

At least, he thought with real relief, they’d both known better than to try to make it more than it was, or make him other than he was.

“I knew what kind of man you were from the start,” she said, when the pregnancy test stick turned pink. “Don’t worry about it, Shay… I’m fine.”

“I’ll contribute,” he’d said, worriedly. “I don’t mean to---“

“You mean to defend your privacy with your dying breath,” she replied. “But, yeah—you’ll contribute. Think I want our kid growing up without a Da? I’ll send him around to see you all the time. You can teach him about the bees—but, Shay? Just the bees, yeah? Leave the birds out of it—let me cover them.”

“Considering you’re the knocked up cow, are you sure that’s wise?” he’d asked.

She’d smiled, and assured him it was.

She’d been right, he thought. This had worked. They had their lives, and their descendents spun between them like the bees spun between the blossoms and the hive. She had her cottage at the edge of town. He had the farm. She wrote her books. He did consultation for people around the world, even now. And sometimes—only sometimes—she drove on out or he called a taxi to drive him in, and they spent an evening together. Sometimes they talked and remembered old times.

Sometimes—just sometimes—they took…what had John and his Maisie called it back in the day, when Maisie had been alive? Ah, yes. Sometimes they took a nap. And then she drove back, or Sherlock took the cab home, and things returned to normal.

“Do you ever have regrets?” John had asked the last time he’d been out—John, who had no notion of the little cottage down at the edge of town, or any idea that the limber seventeen-year-old he eyed with such appreciation was Sherlock’s granddaughter. “Do you wish you’d made other choices?”

“No,” Sherlock said.

It wasn’t quite true. Sometimes he wished he’d ventured more—dared test the barriers of orientation between himself and his blogger. But—John had made his own choice, over and over. Sherlock found that hard to argue with. Those regrets were softened and muted by the burning certainty that, given a choice between an unsuccessful attempt to seduce John—an attempt that might well have resolved in a permanent falling-out—and the years of friendship they had, he’d take the friendship. Judging by his feelings for Janine, and for Molly and Irene, that was likely true, regardless. He was a solitary man, in the end. Singular in every sense of the word.

He smiled, then turned back into the farmhouse. He put the mug in the sink, and slipped one of the café’s aluminum trays of noodles and ham in mornay sauce into the oven. He settled at his desk, opening a file folder. He really had to get to work. After all, it was only two more days till the girl came by again, and he could never manage to do a thing while she was there.


End file.
